The Shunning (31 page)

It was impossible to see who was hurrying down the lane at such a late hour. But when she looked more closely, she recognized the horse from his slight limp. It was ol’ Molasses, the Lapps’ driving horse.

The next morning at breakfast, she mentioned to Elam what she’d seen. “Your sister was out all hours last night. At least, I’m pretty sure it was Katie I saw.”

Elam poured himself a second cup of coffee. “You’d think she’d be trying to settle down and behave herself—with the shunning and all. But not pigheaded Katie.” He sipped his coffee, making a slurping sound. “I guess I should’a known all these years the girl wasn’t my blood kin.”

What a horrible thing to say!
Annie thought, but kept it to herself.

Meanwhile, Daniel began to howl in his cradle near the woodstove. Annie got up quickly. “There, there, little one,” she crooned, kissing his fuzzy head as she picked him up. She sat down at the table again and began nursing him. “Do you think we might’ve done wrong by not letting Katie hold her new nephew?”

“The girl’s shunned, for pity’s sake!” Elam spouted. “I don’t want her holding our baby when she’s in rebellion to the church. The harder the shunnin’, the sooner she’ll be repentin’.”

“Maybe,” Annie said, “but you just said she was pigheaded.”

“She’s stubborn, all right. Who knows how long she’ll hold out?”

“What if she doesn’t repent? Then what?”

Elam shook his head, evidently disgusted at her question. “Well, that would be a mighty awful mistake.”

Katie won’t make that mistake
, Annie fervently hoped. And for a moment, she thought of her deceased brother, wishing Daniel were alive to see her firstborn son and to help Katie—bless her dear, stubborn soul—find her way through the shunning.

————

Tuesday came, and before Samuel, Rebecca, and the boys left for the Zook-King wedding, Katie turned to speak to them from her isolated table in the corner of the kitchen. “I’ll be packed and gone by the time you get home,” she said as they finished eating breakfast.

No one turned to acknowledge her remark. But Katie knew they were listening, and she continued. “You already have the Millers’ address—Peter and Lydia. I’ll be renting a spare room from them if anyone needs to contact me by mail.” Her brothers were staring at her, mouths agape.

“I know you aren’t allowed to speak a word to me because of the Meinding,” she went on, “and I understand all that. But if you
could
say something, if you could speak to me and tell me good-bye—
The
Lord be with ya, Katie
—well, I know you’d mean it . . . you’d mean it with all your hearts.”

She turned away so they wouldn’t see her sudden tears and began to clear off her little table. The tears dripped into the rinse water as she stood over the sink, realizing it was to be the last time she would wash dishes for her family. She was truly leaving, and the process of bidding farewell was more painful than she’d ever imagined it would be.

When the rest of the family had finished, she offered to clean up the kitchen so they could be on their way. Of course, no one said anything. And minutes later, after Katie had assumed she was alone, she was surprised to see her mother, scurrying back into the kitchen as if she’d forgotten something.

“Here, Katie,” she said, all out of breath. “I want ya to have this.” She pushed an envelope into her daughter’s wet hand.

When Katie looked down, she knew instantly that it was the dowry money. “Ach, no, Mamma, I can’t take this. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Nonsense. You’ll be needin’ to buy some different clothes if you’re going up to New York to find your . . . your first Mam. Now, take it and don’t breathe a word to anyone, promise?”

Before Katie could refuse again or thank her mother, Rebecca had spun around and rushed toward the back door.

“Mamma . . . wait!” Katie ran to her, flung her arms wide, catching her mother in a warm embrace. “I love ya, Mam. Honest I do. And . . . no matter what you may think, I’ll always be missing you.”

Rebecca nodded, tears filling her eyes. “You can’t stay on here, Katie . . . I know that.”

“Oh, thank you,” she whispered as her mother turned to go. “Thank you for loving me so.”

————

Katie was determined to leave her bedroom tidy—the kitchen, too. So a good portion of the morning was spent mopping, washing up, and dusting. When she was packed to her satisfaction—leaving several old dresses and capes hanging on their wooden pegs—she located the satin infant gown in her dresser drawer and carried it to the window. There she inspected it carefully, lovingly, once more.

With her fingers she lightly traced the tiny stitches spelling out
Katherine Mayfield
, and in the sunlight, she noticed a tiny spot on the dress. A closer look—and she decided that Mam must have come into the room, found the little dress, and wept. The spot looked, for all the world, like a teardrop.

Waves of emotion washed over her, carrying her along on an undulating tide—sadness . . . joy; confidence . . . uncertainty. Was she doing the right thing? Mary had drilled the question into her so often during their growing-up years. But now? Was leaving Hickory Hollow “the right thing”?

Hours later, with suitcase packed, guitar case in hand, and the contents of her cedar chest stored away neatly in attic boxes, Katie went out to the barn. Her pony seemed restless as she stood beside him. “I wish I could take you with me, Satin Boy, really I do. But you’ll be much happier here with the other animals.”

She set the guitar down and went to get his brush. She talked to him as she brushed his mane with long, sweeping strokes. Then she let her tears fall unchecked as she began to hum one of her favorite songs. “Maybe someday I’ll come back for you, boy, and take you home to live with me—wherever home ends up to be.”

She hand-fed him some hay and patted his nose. “Don’t grow up too fast, and don’t look so sad. It’s not such a bad thing, really. Eli and Benjamin will take good care of you . . . Dat, too.” Speaking her brothers’ names and her father’s familiar nickname aloud brought a lump that seemed to stick in her throat. She knew she should walk away without looking back—the way she had at Mary’s. Maybe then she wouldn’t break down completely.

She took a deep breath and kissed the white marking below Satin Boy’s right eye. Then, picking up her guitar case, she hurried straight to the door and out into the barnyard.

———— The house seemed much too quiet to Rebecca when she stepped into her kitchen after the wedding. And while the men prepared the cows for milking, she headed upstairs to Katie’s room, hoping she’d find a final note from her. Some keepsake to read over and over again.

Katie’s room looked the same as always. The only items missing were a few dresses; she hadn’t taken many of them. All the old choring clothes still hung on their wooden pegs, along with the organdy head coverings.

Searching the top of the dresser, Rebecca saw that the hand mirror was gone, along with Katie’s brush and comb. The lilac sachets were also missing from the drawers.

Lydia’s spare room will soon smell wonderful-gut, I’m thinkin’
. The notion brought a pain to her chest, and she put her hand to her heart and held it there as she made her way down the hall to the bedroom she shared with Samuel.

There on the bed, she spied the little satin dress lying on her pillow.
Oh, Katie, you did leave me something. You left the little dress
.

Her heart swelled with love for her daughter, her precious but unyielding Katie. She leaned down and picked up the small garment, lifting it to her face and noticing, as she did, the faint scent of lilac.

————

Lydia Miller slowed the car as she approached the shady cemetery. “I’ll be glad to take you all the way,” she offered. “No need for you to walk so far.”

Katie shook her head. “Thanks, but it’s not that far from here, really. And I need the exercise.” She got out of the car on the passenger’s side and walked up the slight incline, the sloping area that led to Dan Fisher’s wooden grave marking.

What do ya see when ya look into your future?
he’d asked her years ago.

“Not this,” she muttered to herself. “Never this.”

Dan had gone to heaven, she could only hope. And soon she, too, would be leaving Hickory Hollow for good.
Things just never seem to
work out the way you plan
, she thought.

Katie approached the flat area reserved for Dan’s body. The spot lay cold and empty now as she stared down at the dry, dead grass. “I’m going away,” she whispered. “Can’t stay Amish. But maybe you already know about that.” She glanced up at the blustery, gray clouds high overhead. “You see, I’m fancy inside—and soon will be on the outside, too. And the music—our music . . . well, I’ll be able to sing and play as much as I want to from now on.”

She didn’t cry on this visit, but bent down and knelt on the spot where Dan’s body would’ve been buried if they’d ever found it. “I’ll take good care of your guitar for you,” she said, leaning her head close to the ground. “I promise you that.”

Twenty-Three

K
atie rode into town with Lydia the next morning to make a deposit in her checking account, then accompanied Lydia to market. Because of her mother’s generous gift, Katie had decided to postpone her housekeeping jobs in hopes of finding some good leads on her birth mother’s whereabouts.

“Before I do anything, there’s one more place I must go,” Katie told Lydia. “Will it be too much bother?”

“You say the word.” Lydia was smiling. “Happy to help out a relative in a pinch.”

Katie nodded. Her situation was more desperate than a “pinch,” but she said nothing and kept watching for the turn-off to Mattie’s place.

The fancy blue car stopped in the barnyard behind the main house, and Katie got out. This time to bid farewell to the Wise Woman.

When Ella Mae appeared at the window, there was no cheerful greeting, no welcoming smile. Only a glassy blank stare.

Katie’s heart sank. The Meinding and its practices had caught up with Ella Mae, too. Either that or the old woman had gone daft for sure.

A shadowy motion alerted her to the real reason for the vacant look in the faded hazel eyes. Behind her stood Mattie Beiler, shaking her head solemnly.

“I just came to say good-bye,” Katie called loudly enough to be heard through the door. “I’m leaving Hickory Hollow.” She turned and pointed toward the car. “That’s my Mam’s cousin, Lydia Miller. You probably remember her. . . .” Her voice trailed off when she looked back at the window and saw that Mattie was still standing there, glaring at her through the windowpane.

But it was the single tear tracking a path down the wrinkled lines of Ella Mae’s face that broke Katie’s heart. Reassured her, too. She was not alone in the world, after all.

“I’ll miss ya forever,” Katie blurted, choking back the blinding tears.

The Wise Woman blinked slowly, deliberately, then smiled the faintest smile, creating the familiar dimples. One of the family traits Katie had always loved.

One last, long look, and Katie turned and walked toward the waiting car.

————

Samuel pulled up his rocking chair near the cookstove, removed his socks and wiggled his toes, warming them as he waited for the noon meal. Rebecca felt the emptiness anew without Katie to help with the table setting, and she glanced over at her husband, who seemed to be settling easily into his daily routine.

Wonder how’s he managing, really?
she thought, turning her gaze to Samuel several times before announcing that dinner was ready.

The spot that had always been Katie’s at the big table seemed exceptionally bare in the light of day, even in spite of the fact that she had not sat there for the past ten days—since the shunning began. Still, Rebecca could not get used to it. She never would.

Casting a quick look over her shoulder, she fully expected to see the small table in the corner and was disturbed that she had not remembered seeing Samuel remove it—sometime last evening, maybe. Had she been so caught up in her own despair that she’d blocked it out of her mind?

“When did ya put away Katie’s table?” she asked Samuel, who was busy forking up the beef stew.

“Didn’t do anything with it,” he answered, stretching his neck to have a look at the vacant space.

Rebecca pondered the situation while she cut the meat on her plate. Was she losing her mind?

Then the answer came to her, and she knew precisely what had happened. Katie herself had taken on the chore of folding up the table and putting it away in the cellar. A loving gesture for sure—one that Katie knew might soften the blow for her mother.

Rebecca started to tell Samuel what she was thinking, but her husband stopped her abruptly. “From this day on, there is not to be one word spoken about Katie in this house. We will not be speaking her name—not ever again!”

Startled and hurt, Rebecca jerked her head down. Her hands flew up over her eyes, hiding the quick tears. It was then that she felt Samuel’s warm hand on her arm. His hand remained there long after she’d regained her composure. And because of it, she felt comforted.